Lying and dying

This is a sequel to my prior post on a recent article by Vern Poythress:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/05/who-are-you-going-to-believe-me-or-your.html

The final prong in the issue of lying is the situational prong. Those who permit lying describe situations in which a lie seems to lead to good results. Here we must be careful. The mere attraction of a possible good outcome is not sufficient to ground a moral argument.

True.

The ends do not justify the means.

That’s overstated. Sometimes the end does justify the means.

If a particular action is inherently wrong, then the end, however worthy, cannot justify that action. However, not all actions are inherently right or wrong. In many cases, circumstances are a morally relevant consideration.

God does not permit us to “do evil that good may come” (Rom 3:8).

True. But whether lying is inherently evil is the very issue in dispute. Indeed, Poythress anticipates that response.

The advocate of lying may say that the issue is precisely whether lying is evil in all cases. Yes. But an argument that depends wholly on looking at good results, if unsupported by other buttresses, is quite weak. It is weak also because, without exhaustive knowledge of a situation, knowledge that only God has, we cannot say for sure that there are no good alternatives to lying.

But that’s true of ethical decision-making in general. Yet it would often be unethical not to take into account the probable or foreseeable consequences of our actions, to the best of our knowledge.

God promises us that, in any trial, he will provide a way of escape: “but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor 10:13). We can take as an example a situation that actually involved Nazi soldiers. In the days when Holland was occupied by the Nazis, two of Corrie ten Boom’s Dutch nephews burst into the house because they were being sought for by the Germans to work in the German munitions factories.

The family hid them in a hole under the kitchen floor, a hole used as a potato cellar. A rug lay over the trapdoor, with the kitchen table over the rug…The situation with Cocky involved special circumstances. The advocates of lying may always choose to say that Cocky was naive or over-scrupulous, and that God was merciful to her naiveté. But that argument cuts both ways. Who is naive? Is it Cocky or is it the person who does not trust that God can provide a way out for those who refuse to say untruth? The advice to trust in the Lord emphasizes trust rather than one’s “own understanding”

This assumes that lying is never God’s way of escape. But what if lying–under exceptional circumstances–is, in fact, included in 1 Cor 10:13?

In both Mark (13:11) and Luke (21:12-16), Jesus describes a situation where Christians are on trial for their faith.17 Admittedly it is not exactly the same situation as when Nazi soldiers arrive at the door. And yet the two are akin. Both involve response to governmental authorities. And when the Nazis come, a Christian is figuratively speaking on trial with respect to whether he will continue in the Christian way or give in to the pressure from government. If we are in such a situation, it is wise to pray that God will give us an answer, even on the spot (“not to meditate beforehand how to answer”). Each situation may call for its own creative response.

Of course, a creative response might include a creative lie. Poythress needs to show that his prooftexts furnish an alternative to lying. But what if they are consistent with lying?

But people can still have the feeling that there is no way out.

That way of framing the issue begs the question. What if lying (under special circumstances) is the way out?

In reply, let me at least suggest that in some circumstances one might take the initiative in conversation. The manner of taking initiative is even suggested by what Jesus says about “your opportunity to bear witness” (Luke 21:13).

We engage them with the gospel. Soldiers and police are not merely faceless agents of the government. They are human beings to whom we can bring the good news of salvation.18 And this good news, which addresses the issue of the eternal destiny of the soul, is more important even than the preservation of human life, including our own.

What this overlooks is that sheltering Jews is also a Christian witness. Conversely, ratting them out damages the Christian witness.

The hypothetical deals with three parties: the Nazis, hidden Jews, and Christians sheltering the Jews. So one has weigh which party has a greater claim to our beneficence: the Nazis or the Jews.

I am not of course saying that this is the only way to answer, but it is one possible way. Maybe it will result in being carried off to prison and to death. Maybe it will result in the house being continually searched, so that it is not in fact a good place to hide Jews. But the house becomes a good place to witness to Nazis. Every time they come to conduct a search, one can follow them around, or at least talk to the one who is left behind to watch. They become a captive audience, in a way similar to how the soldier guarding Paul became a captive audience for the gospel. If one is imprisoned, as Corrie ten Boom and her sister were, one witnesses to the other prisoners and to the guards, as one has opportunity.

It’s nice to seize the occasion to do that. However, I wouldn’t say the Nazi soldiers are a captive audience. Why assume they will let you annoy them? They might shoot you dead if you become a nuisance.

When the Nazis come, what is at stake is not only our life but the lives of those we may be hiding. Yes. But, especially in this extreme situation, I want to raise the question of whether truth is more important than anyone’s life. If the Lord tarries, we will all die physically—some sooner, some later. The sixth Commandment teaches us to value human life. But life in this world, valuable as it is, is not everlasting. Our life, what is it? “For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (Jas 4:14). By contrast, the truth abides forever (Matt 24:35).

That’s an interesting argument. However,

i) It blurs the distinction between protecting my own life and protecting the life of another. There are situations where I have a greater obligation to protect someone else’s life rather than my own.

ii) If, according to Johannine theology, Jesus is both truth and life, then there’s a sense in which both truth and life are everlasting.

iii) Poythress strikingly argues that truth is more important than mortal life, not because it is true, but because it is everlasting. What makes truth more valuable is not its truthfulness, not its distinctive property, but a property other than truthfulness. But in that case, truth in itself is not more valuable than mortal life.

iv) Apropos (iii), is something everlasting ipso facto more valuable than something temporary? According to Christian eschatology, it’s arguable than the physical universe, or physical elements thereof, is everlasting. Does that mean an inanimate element or process is more valuable than a finite human life, or some finite action?

For instance, Mt 25:35,40 describes temporary acts of charity for persecuted Christians. That’s finite. Ephemeral. Yet it’s accorded utmost value. Ditto: Mt 10:42 (“And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward”).

v) Isn’t there a sense in which falsehood is everlasting? Aren’t liars consigned to everlasting punishment? Do they cease to be liars in hell?